Help Center Native E-Signature Troubleshooting

E-Signature Troubleshooting — Common Errors and Fixes in Dochly

Updated June 2026 10 min read Native E-Signature
This guide covers every category of e-signature error in Dochly — email delivery failures, signing interface problems, storage issues, status tracking errors, reminder and expiry problems, Flow automation failures, and bulk sending errors. Each error includes the most likely causes and the specific steps to fix it. If you're contacting Dochly support, the diagnostic checklist at the bottom tells you exactly what information to include for the fastest resolution.

First checks before troubleshooting

Before investigating a specific error, run through these quick checks. They resolve the majority of e-signature issues without any further investigation.

E-signature is enabled

Dochly → Settings → E-Signature → confirm the Enable E-Signature toggle is on. If it's off, the Send for Signature button won't appear and Flow sending actions will fail silently.

Email deliverability is set to All Email

Salesforce Setup → Email → Deliverability. Must be "All Email" — not "System Email Only". This is the single most common cause of signature emails not being received by signers.

Dochly connection status is green

Dochly → Settings → Connection Status. If any indicator shows red, e-signature may fail even if the button appears. Re-run the Setup Wizard to restore the connection before investigating further.

Template outputs PDF

E-signature only works with PDF format. If the template is set to DOCX or XLSX output, the Send for Signature button is unavailable. Change the template output format to PDF in template settings.

Email delivery errors

Signer did not receive the signature request email
Symptom: The signer reports they never received the email, or status stays at "Sent" with no "Opened" event in the audit trail.
Most likely causes
  • The Contact email address on the Salesforce record is incorrect or empty
  • Salesforce email deliverability is set to "System Email Only" — blocks external emails
  • The email landed in the signer's spam or junk folder
  • The signer's email server blocked the email — corporate spam filters are common
How to fix
  • Open the Salesforce record and verify the Contact email address is correct and complete
  • Check Salesforce Setup → Email → Deliverability — set to All Email if currently on "System Email Only"
  • Ask the signer to check spam/junk folder and whitelist your sending domain
  • Use the Dochly tracking panel → Resend to send a new notification to the same address
  • Verify your Salesforce org has SPF and DKIM configured for your sending domain — this significantly improves deliverability to corporate email servers
Reminder emails are not being sent
Symptom: The configured reminder schedule is not triggering — unsigned requests receive no reminder emails after the initial send.
Most likely causes
  • Automatic reminders are disabled in Dochly → Settings → E-Signature → Reminders
  • The reminder frequency limit has been reached — no more reminders are sent after the limit
  • The request was overridden to disable reminders at the time of sending
How to fix
  • Go to Dochly → Settings → E-Signature → Reminders and confirm "Enable automatic reminders" is toggled on
  • Check the reminder frequency limit — if set to 1 and the first reminder was already sent, no further reminders will go out
  • Check the individual request in the tracking panel — a per-request reminder override may have disabled reminders for that specific send

Signing experience errors

Signer clicks the link but gets an error page
Symptom: The signer clicks the signing link in the email but sees an error — "This link is no longer valid", "Link expired", or a generic error page.
Most likely causes
  • The signing link has expired — the request was not signed within the configured expiry window
  • The request was voided by the sender — the link was deactivated
  • The signer is trying to access the link after already completing signing
  • The signing link was broken by an email client reformatting the URL (line break inserted mid-URL)
How to fix
  • Check the request status in the tracking panel — if Expired, send a new request; if Voided, a new request is required; if Completed, the signer has already signed
  • If the link was broken by email formatting: resend the request — the new email will have a fresh, unbroken link
  • If the signer forwarded the original email to another email address, the link may be for the original recipient only — resend directly to the correct address
Signer cannot complete signing — "Submit" button is disabled
Symptom: The signer has drawn their signature but the Submit or Complete Signing button remains greyed out or disabled.
Most likely causes
  • One or more Required fields have not been completed — all Required fields must be filled before submission is enabled
  • A required Text Input field was left blank by the signer
  • An Initials field on a previous page was skipped
How to fix
  • Ask the signer to scroll through the entire document — incomplete required fields are highlighted in red
  • Check the template for initials fields on early pages that the signer may have missed
  • If a required Text Input field is causing issues, check if it can be changed to Optional in the template — or pre-populate it from a Salesforce merge field instead
Signing interface doesn't display correctly on mobile
Symptom: The signer opens the document on their phone but the signature field is cut off, the document is very small, or the draw signature tool doesn't respond to touch.
Most likely causes
  • The signer is using an older mobile browser — some older browser versions have limited touch support for drawing signatures
  • The signature field in the template is very small — harder to interact with on a small screen
  • The document has very wide tables that cause horizontal scrolling on narrow screens
How to fix
  • Ask the signer to use Chrome or Safari (latest version) on mobile — these have the best touch input support
  • Increase the signature field size in the template — a minimum of 180px wide × 60px tall works well on mobile
  • Suggest the "Type" signature option instead of "Draw" — typed signatures render a name in a signature font and work well on all devices

Signed document storage errors

Signed document doesn't appear on the Salesforce record after completion
Symptom: All parties have signed but no signed PDF appears in the record's Files related list.
Most likely causes
  • "Store signed document on record" is not enabled in e-signature settings
  • The generating user lacks Create access on ContentDocument (Salesforce Files) in their profile
  • The record was deleted or merged after the signing request was sent
How to fix
  • Dochly → Settings → E-Signature → Storage → confirm "Store signed document on record" is enabled
  • Check the generating user's profile: Setup → Profiles → [Profile] → Object Settings → Content Documents → verify Create is checked
  • The signed document can be downloaded manually from the Dochly signature tracking panel and uploaded to the record as a temporary workaround
  • See: Store signed documents in Salesforce
Audit trail is missing from the record after signing
Symptom: The signed document is on the record but the audit trail PDF is not there alongside it.
Most likely causes
  • "Store audit trail on record" is not enabled in e-signature storage settings
How to fix
  • Dochly → Settings → E-Signature → Storage → enable "Store audit trail on record"
  • This setting only applies to future completions — it does not retroactively add the audit trail to documents already signed. For completed documents, download the audit trail from the Dochly E-Signature Dashboard → Completed → [Request] → Download Audit Trail

Status and tracking errors

Status still shows "Sent" after the signer says they signed
Symptom: The signer confirms they completed signing but the Salesforce record still shows E-Signature Status = "Sent".
Most likely causes
  • The Salesforce record page is showing a cached/stale status — not refreshed since signing completed
  • The signer encountered an error on submission — they may have drawn a signature but a submit error prevented completion being recorded
  • The signer signed but it was a different request (earlier version) that had already been voided
How to fix
  • Hard-refresh the Salesforce record page (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R)
  • Check the audit trail in the Dochly tracking panel — it shows every event including any submission errors
  • Ask the signer to retry using the original link — if they get a "completed" confirmation screen, the issue was a stale page cache
  • If the audit trail shows the signing attempt failed, resend the request
Is Signed checkbox and E-Signature Status fields are not updating
Symptom: Signing completes and the document is stored, but the Salesforce field values on the record (E-Signature Status, Is Signed, Signed Date) are not being updated.
Most likely causes
  • Post-signature field updates are not configured in e-signature settings
  • The Dochly post-signature action doesn't have edit permission on the fields it is trying to update
How to fix
  • Dochly → Settings → E-Signature → Post-Signature Actions → confirm field update actions are configured and enabled
  • Verify the fields being updated are not read-only for the Dochly system user's profile — check field-level security for the specific fields
  • See: Store signed documents — post-signature record updates

Expiry and reminder errors

Request expired too quickly — signer didn't have enough time
Symptom: Signers consistently report receiving a "link expired" error before they had a chance to sign. The expiry period is too short for the typical signing behaviour.
Most likely causes
  • The org-level or template-level expiry period is set too short for the document type or signer audience
  • The document is being sent to enterprise contacts who route documents through procurement or legal review before signing — requiring more time than the default
How to fix
  • Increase the default expiry period: Dochly → Settings → E-Signature → Expiry → increase from 7 days to 14 or 30 days
  • For specific templates used with enterprise customers, override expiry at the template level to 30 days
  • For requests already expired, extend the expiry from the tracking panel: open the request → Extend Expiry → add additional days without resending
  • See: Set up reminders and expiry

Flow-triggered e-signature errors

Flow-triggered signature request is not sending
Symptom: A Flow that should send a document for signature runs without error but no signature request email is received by the signer.
Most likely causes
  • The Send for Signature input in the Flow action is not set to true
  • The signer email input in the Flow action is empty or resolves to null
  • The template referenced in the Flow is set to Draft or Inactive
  • The Flow action fault path is silently catching the error without surfacing it
How to fix
  • Open the Flow in Setup → Flows → [Flow Name] — check the Generate Document action and confirm "Send for Signature" is set to true
  • Confirm the Signer Email input maps to a field that has a value on the triggering record — e.g. {!$Record.Contact.Email} resolves to null if the Contact field is empty
  • Confirm the template referenced in the action is Active
  • Add a fault path to the action that creates a Task on failure — this surfaces errors that are currently being swallowed
  • Check Setup → Paused and Failed Flow Interviews for any error detail

Bulk e-signature errors

Bulk job shows failed records — some signers did not receive emails
Symptom: The bulk signature job completes with a "Failed" count — some records generated documents but signature request emails were not sent.
Most likely causes
  • The signer email field is empty or null on the affected records
  • Some records in the report have invalid or malformed email addresses
  • The email field mapped in the bulk job configuration doesn't exist on all records in the report
How to fix
  • Go to Dochly → E-Signature → Bulk Send → [Job Name] → Failed Records — review the error reason for each failed record
  • For "Missing email address" errors: update the Contact email on each affected Salesforce record, then create a new filtered report containing only those records and run a new targeted bulk send
  • Before future bulk jobs, add a report filter: Contact.Email is not blank — this prevents records with missing emails from entering the batch
  • See: Send bulk e-signature requests

Diagnostic checklist — what to include when contacting support

If you've worked through the relevant sections above and the issue persists, use this checklist before contacting Dochly support. Having this information ready significantly speeds up resolution.

  • 1
    The Salesforce Record ID of the originating record (the Opportunity, Contract, etc. where the signing request was sent from)
  • 2
    The exact error message or status shown in the Dochly signature tracking panel or audit trail
  • 3
    The template name and whether it is Active, Draft, or Inactive
  • 4
    The signer's email address and whether the email address was verified as correct on the Contact record
  • 5
    The current Salesforce email deliverability setting (Setup → Email → Deliverability)
  • 6
    Whether the issue occurs for all signers or only specific email domains (indicating a deliverability issue with a specific mail server)
  • 7
    A screenshot of the Dochly Connection Status panel (Dochly → Settings → Connection Status)
  • 8
    For Flow-triggered issues: the Flow API name, whether it is Active, and the exact action configuration (screenshot of the Send for Signature action inputs)
  • 9
    For bulk sending issues: the bulk job name and the error messages from the Failed Records list
  • 10
    Whether the issue is new or has always occurred — and any recent changes to Salesforce (deployments, profile changes, field updates) that may have coincided with the issue starting

Contact Dochly support via the Help Center with the information above. The more context you include — especially the Record ID and the audit trail screenshot — the faster the support team can diagnose and resolve the issue.

Frequently asked questions

Check the Dochly Connection Status first (Dochly → Settings → Connection Status). If any indicator shows red, the connection needs to be re-established via the Setup Wizard. Also check whether a Salesforce deployment was pushed recently — deployments can change profile permissions, field-level security, or email deliverability settings without the admin realising. Check the Salesforce deployment history in Setup → Deploy → Deployment Status.
Check Dochly → Settings → E-Signature → Completion Emails — confirm that "Send completion email to all signers" is enabled. Also confirm the signer's email address is valid and that Salesforce deliverability is set to All Email. If completion emails are enabled and the signed document is stored on the record, the completion itself was successful — the email delivery is a separate issue likely related to the same deliverability configuration as the initial request email.
Use your own email address as the signer. In the Send for Signature modal, enter your own email instead of the customer's Contact email. Complete the full signing workflow yourself — you'll receive the request email, sign the document, and the completed document will store on the record. This is the recommended approach for testing any e-signature configuration or template change before using it with real customers.

Native E-Signature series complete

You've covered the complete Dochly native e-signature guide series — from initial setup through sending, tracking, signature fields, bulk sending, storage, reminders, and troubleshooting. Your e-signature workflows are now fully configured and running natively inside Salesforce.

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